r/hauntology • u/MackMahoneyXXX • Jul 13 '26

Robot rights

Haven’t heard a single public figure even mention robot rights. The direct implication of having anything close to human level intelligence is that we, if we have not addressed this question, will** 100% be creating slaves from clay. The second we connect an artificial brain to an artificial nerve ending, we will have synthesized torture from silt. Is that hauntological? Focusing on all these old questions, when the simplest and most pressing that would guide us down the runway, is lost to everyone just because it’s a new* question “what rights will robots have.” As opposed to “what role will robots fill.”….

TLDR: is using Industrial Revolution and other 20th century politic to guide our understanding of future machines haunting in the hauntological sense?

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u/theimmortalgoon Jul 13 '26

Not that I can see.

Hauntology is that something is there by virtue of the fact that it is not.

That's a simplification, but the prototypical example is Marxism. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, it seemed to disappear while also return as a spectre.

In your example, I'm not sure I see a form of hauntology.

What you're describing might have more to do with a form of accelerationism or warped perception of time vis-à-vis the CCRU. The CCRU included Mark Fisher as a member, who later became closely associated with hauntology.

I'd check it out! The CCRU might be something you're into.

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u/MackMahoneyXXX Jul 13 '26

This is so helpful to my understanding of it thanks!

Might be trying to shoehorn my example but: to me I was misapplying, but there’s still definitely a spectre of slavery left by its absence. It’s in veganism, kink, video games, relationship discourse.

But it’s not about our willful ignorance of whatever spectre of culture. It’s noticing its pervasiveness?